Switched
by FearMyLaserFace
Summary: Ichika Orimura was kidnapped at age 10, however due to the stupidity of his captors and his intelligence everything changed. Follow Ichika on the path to power that must be completed to fufill his destiny. Featuring an Ichika who isn't a complete dunce, and a few extra surprises that I don't wan't to ruin just yet. IS is owned by Izuru Yumizuru, not me or I wouldn't be doing this.
1. Prologue: Beginning The Path

**Hi, this is my first fanfiction so I hope you enjoy it. If there is anything you think I could be doing better, ****_CONSTRUCTIVE_**** criticism is appreciated. Telling me that this fic sucks without giving me a way to fix it will not result in a better fic, just an incredibly pissed off author.**

**"Speech"  
'Thoughts'  
;IS communication;  
-(Location, Timeskip where applicable)-**

**PROLOGUE:**

* * *

**-(Warehouse)-**

'I need to get out of here' was the only thought running through a 10 year old Ichika Orimura's mind as he was currently tied to a pole in a warehouse.

If anyone were to ask what circumstances lead to him being here, they would have to give you the history of IS and the Mondo Grosso, a competition between IS pilots, because this is what led him to be here.

Looking around, Ichika notices several things. An IS 'Not very helpful as only females con pilot one', and a shard of glass which came from a broken window which was sitting near his hands. (A/N. I know, this is convenience and stupidity at its finest. Sadly, it's necessary for the plot to last past the prologue.)

'The person who tied me here is a moron, he left me a way straight out of here'. In said morons defence, he probably wasn't expecting a 10 year old to be thinking rationally in this situation.

Ichika grabbed the glass and used it to hack at his bindings. This being a tedious process led to Ichika to creating a plan to follow after he freed himself.

'1. Get unbound. 2. Find out where guards are. 3. Evade guards and escape warehouse. 4. Contact authorities and Chifuyu-nee so they can sort this mess out.'

Several minutes passed as Ichika cut at his bindings. Once he was free of the bindings, he promptly abandoned his plan by walking over and standing by the IS, an Uchigane, if he wasn't mistaken.

Which he rarely was, as an insanely intelligent boy. Tabane Shinonono level insane. Seriously, he tested out of high school only this last school year. This means he also has several eccentricities, one of which is to abandon a train of thought on a whim which was just demonstrated (Also an obsession with making a pair of ears like Tabane's).

This also means that by looking at the IS, he sees several things he would do in order to improve a personal IS in general. "Shorter legs and arms which are long enough to allow height and reach but no more than 2 feet longer in the arms and 3 in the legs." Ichika began to mutter under his breath. "Thinner legs and arms, only two to three inches wider on the inside than the widest part of the pilot's limb. Programming to accommodate the growth in the pilot's body by to make IS comfortable. Minimize size of wings in order to decrease mass similar to leg and arm modifications would increase thrust capabilities without increasing thrust output."

'Maybe I need to talk to Tabane-nee after all of this is over' Ichika thought to himself.

Meanwhile, outside the warehouse he was in, gunfire started sounding off. 'What the hell.'

One of the men who kidnapped Ichika came back into the room and noticed Ichika was no longer bound in his spot by the pole and looked around. Upon seeing Ichika by the IS he shouted "Hey boy! That thing won't work for you anyway so why are you near it" and ran up to Ichika grabbing him and pinning him against the IS.

A small glow appeared around Ichika's hand where it came into contact with the IS. "Impossible" was the only remark from the man pinning Ichika.

Inside Ichika's head a voice not his own asked. Do you wish for power?;. 'Yes'. ;I can put you on the path to power, but the journey's beginning will be painful and I will not be there to accompany you to its conclusion;. 'I do not care about the pain as with the power you can give, I can become stronger to protect myself and all those I care about'. ;You have potential that many others can only dream of, and for that alone I would have started you on this path. With your noble cause, I am unrepentant in giving you this power as I can see you will use it wisely;.

The light on Ichika's hand expanded around Ichika to the point where he was fully engulfed by the light. At this point, three things happened.

The man pinning Ichika backed up rather quickly to the other side of the room.

Chifuyu entered the room in her IS [Kurazakura].

Ichika started screaming as his DNA was being rewritten to allow him power.

"Ichika!" Chifuyu Orimura, Ichika's older sister shouted while disposing of the man who was cowering away from Ichika before she went to him and tried to figure out what was wrong. That was when she noticed the IS next to him and had a reaction very similar to the other man. At this point she was panicking heavily when the light begins to die down along with Ichika's screams.

When the light has almost fully dispersed, Ichika begins to drop from being unconscious from the pain he went through and Chifuyu immediately reaches out and catches him.

Looking at her brother Chifuyu is shocked by what she sees. Her little brother doesn't qualify for that title anymore. Ichika has changed, to put it lightly. Immediately noticeable is the long, dark hair, not unlike her own, and the softer, feminine features of the face whereas before the hair was short and carried a heavy blue tint which was now gone and sharper, more masculine features which would be found on a boy.

Chifuyu is certain that this change is not only a complete transformation (ALL of Ichika's body is now female), but that it is also irreversible. She also knows that the one person able to help her understand what happened fully is currently unconscious in her arms.

* * *

**-(Hospital, 1 Week later)-**

Chifuyu is currently next to a hospital bed whose occupant was once her little brother although now is her little sister.

As she expected, the transformation is a complete one. That is, Ichika is now a girl and it is permanent.

Ichika has yet to wake from her coma which happened after the transformation was complete. This is why Chifuyu is here. To offer support to her sister when she wakes up if it is necessary.

(A/N. For conveniences sake… again) A soft groan from Ichika alerted Chifuyu to the fact her sister was waking up now. Ichika's eyes slowly open and once they have refocused they find themselves locked on Chifuyu. "Chifuyu-nee" Ichika whispered as her voice was weak from not being used for several days.

"Hello Ichika" Chifuyu said softly. This set off alarm bells in Ichika's head 'What's wrong that it would make Chifuyu speak in that kind voice, it must be very bad'.

"Chifuyu-nee what's wrong?" Ichika asked with some more strength behind her words. This was when she realised that her voice was different and a frown crossed her face in trying to figure out what caused it.

"Ichika, by the look on your face I think you have noticed there is something is different about you now, so I will tell you what we know of what happened". Chifuyu began. "When you came into contact with the IS in the warehouse where you were kept after being kidnapped, something strange happened. The IS interacted with you for some reason and when it was finished, your DNA had been rewritten. Ichika, the IS made you a girl". Chifuyu ended bluntly in order to minimise the damage when Ichika reacted as her sibling had a tendency to explode violently when someone takes too long to explain something.

"EHHH! It changed me into a girl!" Ichika screamed in the high pitched voice that now belonged to her. Taking a few calming breaths, Ichika began to think out loud. "So this is what that IS meant when it said it would put me on the path to power, it was also right when it said that the beginning would be painful. I know I have the potential to do well as the IS said, now I need to put this potential into motion. I am however starting to wonder why I agreed to this in the first place".

"O.K. I understand Chifuyu, I don't like it but I understand". Ichika said in a progressively weaker voice as she started to fall asleep again.

'Sleep well Ichika, because what I didn't tell you was that every media outlet around the world already knows what has happened here so you are in for a hell of a time in the near future. Hmm, I wonder if I should call in some of those favours Tabane owes me to keep Ichika safe with her until she can go to IS academy in 5 years'

* * *

**Well that's the prologue done. Hope you enjoyed it and hopefully I will get up the next chapter in a few days at the most (Maybe a week).**

**FearMyLaserFace.**


	2. Chapter 1: The Next 5 Years

**I was bored so I decided to get this accursed chapter out of the way and get into the friendly waters of being able to base some of my plot off of the canon storyline. I'm not happy with this chapter at all but I didn't want to spend forever trying to get it right. So this will probably be pretty bad.  
Thanks to RecklessBaka as my first reviewer, and I agree surprise was a bit of an understatement.  
Thanks to everyone else who read the prologue and decided to keep reading, hope you stick around for the long haul.  
And yes, I did just genderbend the MC of the story.**

**Warning: Slight femslash towards end of chapter. (What else could it possibly be, I took one of the two males in the series and made them a girl and I don't think Dan is going to come out of nowhere is he).**

**Translations provided by google translate, so please don't kill me if it translated wrong. Instead correct my errors and help me to improve my story.**

**"Speech"  
'Thoughts'  
;IS communication;  
-(Location, Timeskip where applicable)**

**Chapter 1: The Accursed Timeskip Chapter**

* * *

**-(Tabane's Secret Laboratory, 1 Month after warehouse incident)-**

"Hi Chi-chan! Hi Ikkun!" The ever enthusiastic Tabane Shinonono greeted Ichika and Chifuyu while trying... and failing to get a hug from Chifuyu. "Or is it Icchan? Why do you have to be a girl now, it's so confusing!"

"Of the two, Icchan is probably better. I have to get used to being a girl at some point, may as well start now". Ichika replied

Chifuyu added "Tabane, I want you to look after Ichika. I have been called to Germany for a year and although I trust Ichika, I want her to learn as much about IS as she can as she will attend IS Academy, and as she tested out of high school last year, it is better that she does this than nothing for five years. Also this will keep her out of the public's sight for a few years and hopefully everything will calm down by the time she goes to the academy."

"You can count on me Chi-chan, I'll take care of Icchan for you". Tabane replied.

While all of this was happening Ichika was looking around all of the different areas of the lab as she would be spending a lot of time in here over the next five years before IS Academy.

* * *

**-(Tabane's Secret Laboratory, 5 Months Later)-**

"Hey Icchan, those ideas you had, they would be good for high mobility IS units as all of it will make them harder to hit, which I suppose was the whole point of them". Tabane called across the lab to Ichika.

Ichika replied "That's right, though they could be used for the long range and support units, there really isn't any point unless every unit was a long range unit. But those modifications would be good for a close or mid-range unit as it will allow them easier travel through enemy fire".

"That's a good Idea, I assume you're going to incorporate it into your own IS when you fix the problems such a design would encounter". Was the response given.

In the last 5 months, Ichika has been reading and researching almost constantly about the IS. This is so she could keep up with Tabane in the lab and then she would start work on helping with the design and manufacture of the technology for the IS that Tabane has been doing since the introduction of IS to the world during the White Knight Incident.

Between doing this her goal is to design and manufacture her own personal IS which would be top of the line in technology and be constantly updated as Ichika came up with new Ideas for what her IS could contain.

Her other goal (Which she hasn't told Tabane about) is to develop her own set of animal ears like Tabane's. However, hers will not be rabbit ears as she is rather partial to the fox and her IS will also have a small base in this theme.

* * *

**-(Tabane's Secret Lab, 3 Years Later)-**

Ichika and Tabane were standing side by side in front of a rather plain looking IS. The [Kurogitsune], or Black Fox was completely designed and manufactured from the ground up by Ichika besides the core as that is the only thing that Ichika doesn't know about IS.

The world may believe that there are only 467 cores, but why on earth would you stop producing them at such a ridiculous number. There are actually 500 cores, but the 33 that aren't known of are kept safe in Tabane's lab. However, when Ichika said she was going to build her own IS from the ground up Tabane gave her one of those cores.

This IS is largely different from any other IS on the market, personal or otherwise. Where most IS stood at approximately 2.5 times their pilot's height, [Kurogitsune] was a little below 2 times the height of its operator.

[Kurogitsune] had a much smaller frame than most conventional IS, with it's legs frame at their greatest diameter is still less than 1 foot wide. In the arms the frame itself is less than ten inches at its widest around the hand.

To compensate for the frames overall 'petiteness' the frames composition itself has been modified to be made of a more damage resistant metal alloy as the original would not have been able to handle the stress that the movement and speed that [Kurogitsune] would produce.

There is also the difference in computer technology on-board the IS. Most IS's computing power stops at the hyper sensor and aiming control, [Kurogitsune] has an AI present which allows some of the other equipment to work independently of the pilot.

The 2 glaring visible differences in the frame are not the size as that can be overlooked, but the frames full body covering armour and the lack of shoulder units.

The armour covers the entirety of the pilot of [Kurogitsune] upon the first fitting. The most intimidating aspect of the armour of [Kurogitsune] is the Facial Obscuration Matrix, more commonly known as a mask. Said matrix can be equipped and unequipped during a battle, however the ears on top of [Kurogitsune]'s pilots head are permanent as they will protect the fox ears that Ichika is currently wearing. (Which Tabane totally loved, even if they weren't bunny ears).

The shoulder units however, are another story. It is because shoulder units are so cumbersome that Ichika came up with a solution. This solution came in part because of the fold out armour that Tabane was designing at the time. Ichika, in place of shoulder units attached a pack that sits in-between the shoulders of [Kurogitsune] with two 5 ½ foot long poles 3 inches in width and two 4 ½ foot long poles 2 inches in width from which Ichika's modified version of the fold out armour deploys. This modified version acts as a physical barrier which will encounter air resistance making Ichika use them as real wings.

"Icchan, it's amazing" were the awe filled first words to come out of Tabane's mouth upon seeing [Kurogitsune], as Ichika had not allowed her to see it at any point during construction which began 2 weeks ago. Even going so far as to sleep in the same bed as Tabane to keep her from sneaking a peek while Ichika was asleep, resulting in many blushes from both parties as Ichika has grown a lot over the past 3 ½ years.

"I know right" the slight smirk on Ichika's face could be heard in the statement. "And it only took me 3 years to get it fully completed" the more disappointment filled words followed.

"Icchan don't get down about it, it was your first time designing and building an IS from scratch. And you did it on your own which no-one else I know of can say". The encouraging words from Tabane helped to reassure Ichika that she would either get better at doing this and that she is the only one who has done it so she holds the record for the achievement. They also caused a rather large blush to erupt on Ichika's face.

Tabane's words have such a large effect on Ichika's opinions because over the last 3 ½ years, Ichika has developed a rather large crush on the genius, not that she will ever admit it willingly. Ichika believes her crush is due to two things.

The first is that even though she has now accepted and come to terms with being a girl, she was a boy first and the programming of boy+girl is what she was raised with so she came to find women attractive as a boy and nobody can change that without completely rewriting the section of the brain in charge of that.

Second is that because of her being attracted to women and there being only one woman around, and a very attractive one at that means that there will be an attraction present.

However what she doesn't know is that Tabane has the same feelings for her that she has for Tabane. Tabane covers these feelings just as well as Ichika as they both understand that even if the other shared their feelings, it would be seen as inappropriate by everyone else due to their respective ages. They are both thinking in the back of their mind however, that when it will be more acceptable to society, that they will confess to the other.

* * *

**-(Tabane's Secret Laboratory, 1 Year Later)-**

Since the completion of her personal IS, Ichika has been learning several forms of martial arts, mainly kendo and karate, in order to be able to use her IS to its fullest potential and she has become proficient in both. She has learnt how to fire a gun and has, over time become rather accurate. She has worked hard on getting in shape as it will help her when she starts to pilot her IS which she hasn't been able to do so far as she doesn't have the room and she doesn't want to reveal Tabane's location to anyone.

To distract herself from her IS which is just sitting there at the moment, unused she has been working hard alongside Tabane to make new pieces of hardware for IS which they could sell to other IS manufacturers.

At first, any designs that were purely Ichika's work, Tabane wanted to give her full profits from. Ichika didn't agree with this and they argued at length about how the profits would be split. Ichika didn't want the money but Tabane convinced her to take 75% before Ichika put her foot down and declared she would take no more than that for her work while Tabane also tried to convince her to take some of the profits from the designs that they co-created. Ichika flat out refused as 90% of those designs were produced by Tabane for most of the creation process with little input from Ichika.

Ichika has also been working on several weapons which will go into [Kurogitsune].

The first of these are [Kitsune no unarigoe], the Foxes Growl, a pair of smg's with a high fire rate that fire out energy rounds, so there is no reload.

The second is [Kitsune kosho], the Foxes Bite, a twin bladed longsword with the tips tapering inwards towards each other touching at the very edge of the blade with a serrated edge. This weapon has a secondary feature similar to that of the Yukihira series of swords as it can deploy an energy blade along its leading edge. It also has the same one off ability [Reiraku Byakuya], but it has been improved to take up far less of the bus slots and use less energy over it's duration.

[Kitsune kosho] also has another ability which is that its blades are able to separate into two identical blades. [Reiraku Byakuya] is no longer possible in this form, but it is still possible to use the energy blade along the leading edge of both blades.

There are 4 'bits' which deploy from the arms of the IS and they are controlled by the AI in the IS which has been nicknamed 'Kit'. These are the [Kitsune tsume], the foxes claws and are a combination close to mid-range weapon. They can deploy small energy blades for close range attacks and it can fire energy beams in order for use as a mid-range support attack.

All of these designs were created by Ichika for her IS, and will never be given to any other people who want weapons similar to this.

* * *

**-(Tabane's Secret Laboratory, 6 Months Later)-**

It was finally time, time for Ichika to go to IS Academy.

"Icchan, I'm going to miss you!" Tabane proclaimed as she glomped Ichika with a hug, pulling Ichika's head into her rather impressive bust.

Feeling her cheeks heating up (And some other places), Ichika managed to stutter out "I-I'll miss y-you too Tabane" while wrapping her arms around Tabane and trying to keep the tears from flowing as she really doesn't want to leave anymore.

Over her five years in the lab, Ichika has grown to an impressive (for a Japanese woman) 5 foot 11 inches in height and has a bust not dissimilar to Tabane's only being smaller by a couple of cup sizes and her behaviour is feminine as well which is quite amazing considering that she has only had 5 years and one female role model. She has also gained a rather sizable bank account with about 10 digits above the decimal point due to the amounts of money people will pay for exclusive IS technology (or almost exclusive).

Over the last year and a half Ichika and Tabane's attraction towards each other has only grown stronger and they have admitted to themselves that they love each other.

"Ichika, there's something I want to tell you" Tabane said rather shyly after they released each other from the hug they were engaged in.

"There's something I want to tell you too, Tabane" Ichika said just as shyly with a small pink tinge on her cheeks.

"I'll go first then" Tabane said while trying to gather the courage for what she was about to say. "Ichika, over the last five years I've spent with you, I've seen you do some pretty amazing things and some things I didn't even think of. Over that time I've also watched you grow into a beautiful woman," at this Ichika blushed "and an amazing friend I never thought I would ever have. And because of all of this, I have realised something. I love you Ichika and I don't want to risk losing you because I didn't act in time".

By the end of this Ichika's eyes had gone wide in shock and surprise and her hands were at her mouth. Tears were starting to form in her eyes and she looked right into Tabane's eyes searching for any trace of deception. When she couldn't find any, her hands lowered from her mouth and she whispered out, barely audible "I love you too, Tabane" and launched herself into Tabane's arms, while tears of happiness leaked out of both of their eyes.

As they clung to each other, they each made a silent promise that no matter what, they would not willingly pursue another in the time they were apart. And as the finished making that promise, their lips met for the first time and it was everything they had hoped and wished for from their first kiss.

As their lips separated, Ichika murmured "Now I really don't want to leave" and buried her face in Tabane's shoulder.

* * *

**I was right, it was BAD. Hopefully it was more fun for you to read than it was for me to write. Yes, I did just make Ichika and Tabane lesbians and put them in a relationship with each other. Hooray for overly clichéd confession and acceptance scene! I know it's clichéd but I do not rightly care whether it is or not, I wanted this pairing to be established before I put Ichika in the IS Academy as it will make so many things easier in the long run. You'll see why in the next few chapters why.**

**And I know at the moment Ichika seems rather overpowered but the next few chapters will hopefully prove that wrong. **

**Hope you liked it, criticise constructively, and have fun.  
From:**

**FearMyLaserFace**


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